Monday, April 8, 2019. Disembarkation, Los Angeles

Monday, April 8, 2018.  Disembarkation Los Angeles

The skyline of Los Angeles greeted us out our balcony at 6AM. The Griffith Park Observatory was visible at the top of the hill overlooking the cruise ship port.  We had our breakfast in the restaurant, rather than the buffet since we had some time before we had to be out of our stateroom.  Then we brushed our teeth and packed up the toothbrush bag into our carry-on and headed for our disembarkation lounge.  There was a regular disembarkation lounge, which was the Crown Grill restaurant.  While we were sitting there, an announcement was made inviting Platinum and Elite members to use the Elite disembarkation lounge with “Its Benefits”, so we left the Crown Grill and headed to the Club Fusion, only to find the Elite disembarkation lounge more crowded.  They did have pastries, but we had already had breakfast, so that really wasn’t much of an upgrade over the regular lounge.  We did have to wait almost 2 hours for our luggage and airport transfer bus to hit the curbside.  Once we filed off the ship, everything went smoothly except that the airport transfer bus’s air conditioning wasn’t working, making for a very hot and uncomfortable 100 minute trip to LAX from the cruise ship terminal. Ben filed a complaint with Princess customer relations, and got the transfer refunded with an apology from the customer relations representative.  He said they were getting quite a few similar complaints related to that bus transfer, which he said was fortunately a rare occurrence.

Looking back at this trip and itinerary, it was an enjoyable and interesting way to get to Hawaii, but it was too bad we didn’t have any overnight stays in our Hawaiian ports of call.  There were quite a few days at sea getting there, and even more getting back. We certainly were kept busy with trivia games and shows.  There were also plenty of lectures, ballroom dance classes, hula and ukulele lessons, pop choir and other activities that we could have opted to do, but didn’t because we were plenty busy just playing trivia.  There was an egg drop and airplane toss that we also passed on, but in the future, Ben would like to enter the egg drop with a Kamakaze egg just to see a good 3 story SPLAT!!  The audience really want’s to see some spilled yolk.  It was a little like summer camp for grown ups, but in our opinion, there were just a few too many days at sea.  They need to relocate Easter Island a few thousand miles north to halfway between Los Angeles and Hawaii. But the Pacific crossing by cruise ship is certainly more comfortable and relaxing than flying if you’re not in a hurry.

We did come home with a pile of loot from our trivia game wins which were mostly Ruby Princess silicone coasters and Princess wine bottle stoppers, which will likely be gifts for our neighbors come Christmas time.  We’re ready for Princess to come out with some new prizes, and would like to see more useful items like key card holder lanyards, neck wallets and carabiners, or coupons for a drink.

It won’t be long before our next cruise, which will be to Alaska from Seattle on the Star Princess.  She is an older sibling to the Ruby Princess who is scheduled to transfer to P&O Lines after completion of this Alaska season.  Hopefully, she won’t be too old or tired to serve us towards the end of May.

Sunday, April 7, 2019. Ensenada, Mexico

Sunday, April 7, 2019.  Ensenada, Mexico

After a long stretch of sea days, we awoke to see an enormous Mexican flag flying over a Carnival cruise ship stack.  In actuality, the flag was on land and we just happened to be slowly maneuvering into our slip on the cruise ship dock, next to the Carnival Inspiration.  The city of Ensenada was spread out before us, reaching up into several foothills that ringed the large arc of coastline that formed a crescent of golden beaches at the head of the surf line.  The marina and port of Ensenada was grafted onto the coastline, creating a hub for commerce.  There was a small marina hosting a fishing fleet, tourism boats and a handful of yachts on one side of us.  Across a channel is a containership pier with cranes and a rail line.  

When we opened our balcony door, we could hear the loud barking of California sea lions. There was a concrete hardened breakwater at the end of the cruise ship pier, upon which a dozen enormous sea lions had hauled themselves up.  It’s amazing how loud those sea lions can be.  It might be annoying if you lived in the marina and had to put up with all that racket all day long.  As work crews showed up to secure our mooring lines, the sea lions slipped into the water and spread out through out the harbor.  We later spotted some on a floating dock in the marina.  Later in the afternoon, they returned to their concrete beach and began another chorus of barking as the ship began preparations to depart.  

The temperature in Ensenada was surprisingly pleasant.  It was in the mid 70’s with a light breeze and bright sunshine with only scattered puffy clouds in the sky.  We didn’t book any excursions for Ensenada as we had heard there wasn’t a whole lot to see other than a couple of wineries.  All foreign flagged cruise ships must call on a foreign port of call during their itineraries before they can return to a US port, due to something called the Jones Act.  This is why we don’t have more cruises that serve just the US coasts.  So we had been lead to believe that calling on Ensenada is more of a necessary inconvenience, rather than a true tourism destination.

We were suprised to see the scope of the city from our balcony.  It was thoroughly modern with modern streets, light traffic, and extended far into the foothills.  We were surprised to learn that this cruise ship way point is home to about a half million people.  

The cruise terminal is home to a number of shops carrying the basic tourist trinkets, so it’s not really necessary to go more than a hundred feet from the gangway to the shops if all you need is a souvenir magnet or Ensenada shot glass.  But, Ensenada has developed the waterfront nicely with nicely paved walkway extending from the cruise ship pier, down the main tourist stretch of the waterfront lined with shops and restaurants, terminating at a colorful fish market where locals get their fresh seafood.  For tourists, you can pick out some choice fresh seafood, and just across the alleyway are restaurants that will cook it up for you and serve it up with a colorful assortment of margaritas and other fruit cocktails.  The assortment of seafood was impressive.  You could get marlin steaks, whole dorado, mullet, sea bass, gooey ducks and everything in between.  The only thing distracting were the clouds of busy flies, so you really had to be looking to cooking and eating the seafood right away.  I’d be afraid that if you left it in the fridge for a week, you’d find it crawling with maggots.  

We walked from the ship to the fish market along the walkway, and then headed back towards the ship a bit inland along the main avenue, which was a 6 lane thoroughfare complete with McDonalds, Starbucks and Carl Jr’s, to a historic hotel called the Riviera del Pacifico, which was a major resort destination during the 1930’s.  It is an example of Spanish architecture and sported some nice woodwork with murals.  There is a grand ballroom, and a round casino room.  The most interesting thing were pictures of the resort during it’s heyday in the 1930’s.  At that time, there was a beach directly in front of the resort, where the highway now lies.  The marina and cruise ship port were built out in front of the resort site, with the breakwater about a half mile out from where the waters used to lap on the shores of the golden sand beach.  South of the port, you can still see the beach arcing down the coastline nearly as far as they eye can see.  

We returned to the ship in time for the mid day trivia.  We met two of our trivia team ashore who had also returned to the ship and played with a mini team.  This particular trivia was largely beyond our comprehension.  We had our lowest score of the entire trip with only 12/24.  The winning team managed 22.  Any idea who wrote the novel “The Cruel Sea”, or who the legendary English pop star is who was born Harry Webb?  That was humbling.  

However, we did make up for that with the afternoon trivia quiz, which we won with just Ben and Janet playing.  There was actually a 3 way tie for first, but we won the tie breaker which was to guess the 2018 population of Ensenada.  One team guessed 49K, while the other team guessed 320K. Ben guessed 445K, and won.  It was a good thing we had read the port guide handout before we left the stateroom this morning.  

Dinner featured surf and turf with a nice bit of tender filet mignon and some giant prawns nearly the size of small lobster tails. It was a worthy last dinner for this cruise.  Dessert also featured Baked Alaska.  

We saw the last Princess Theater show, which was return to the stage of Bryan Cheatham, who did an enjoyable show singing and dancing to pop tunes and a few Disney songs.  Earlier in his career, he had played the lead in Disney Animal Kingdom’s production of The Lion King, so he got to show off his Disney chops.  

We finished packing, leaving out just what we will wear to the airport tomorrow and the toothbrush bag.  

We finished off our last evening with a farewell trivia.  We opened another bottle of champagne and shared it with the team before and during the game.  We ended up 3 points off the lead where there was a 2 way tie, but both teams won champagne.  We did enjoy getting to know Bunny, Sam, Mo and Buddy through the course of the cruise.  It was interesting and good to see the close family dynamics of this wonderful Italian-American family who adopted us two strays into their trivia team.

We made our penultimate run through the buffet before retiring to our stateroom where we watched “Instant Family”, which Ben would recommend as worth watching, if you don’t mind being manipulated a bit.

We’ll set an alarm to get us up bright and early to have breakfast since we have to vacate our stateroom by 8AM.  Our Princess airport transfer will leave from one of the lounges at 9:15, getting us to LAX in plenty of time for our 3PM flight. 

Saturday, April 6, 2019. At Sea

Saturday, April 6, 2019.  At Sea

It sure was hard rolling out of bed this morning, partially because of the time change and partially because we had stayed up watching the end of Hearts Beating Loud.  We barely made it to the morning trivia with our regular team.  No win for us, but we picked up a few new facts, and realized we need to review our basic geometry because there have been a few geometry terms that have popped up in these trivia quizzes.  Today, it was which geometry term applies to two planar or spatial objects that are the same size and shape?  

Today, we received the final totals for the progressive trivia, and found that we ended up second place- bridesmaids by two points.  We actually ended up with a sack of prizes and a bottle of champagne even for placing second place, so we were pretty happy.  

We had a light lunch at the International Cafe before the afternoon Movie Posters trivia, which we lost by one point.  Our undoing was a poster for the movie “Pan’s Labyrinth”, which from a distance looks just like the poster for Big Fish.

We took a break from the regular afternoon trivia for naps and a quick work out.  Tonight was our last formal evening, which was rewarded with some very good broiled New England lobster.  

After dinner, we met with our trivia team for a Motown Music Trivia.  We cracked open the champagne bottle that we had won with the progressive trivia to share with the team.  Despite the champagne, we won, tying with one other team.  We had missed two artists, and were surprised that didn’t cost us the game, but apparently, we weren’t the only ones who struggled with two obscure songs.  One was I Second That Emotion- a Marvin Gaye classic, but it was sung by the Supremes.  The other was Operator, originally sung by Mary Wells, but this version was sung by Brenda Hollloway.  The prize was another bottle of champagne, which we’ll have to consume tomorrow with our team again.

The couple who did the Beatles tribute returned to the Princess Theater for another show which was billed as a tribute to the 50’s and 60’s, but it was 80% Beatles, with some Elvis thrown in.  Both Janet and I dozed through some of the songs due to the effects of the champagne.  

We finished up the evening with the movie Colette, about a woman who’s husband takes credit for a wildly popular novel, not unlike the Big Eyes movie where the husband takes credit for his wife’s popular paintings.

Tomorrow, we pull up to Ensenada, Mexico, our last port of call before we disembark in Los Angeles.  We started packing, putting away our formal clothes and other items we won’t be needing for the next 2 days.

Friday, April 5, 2019. At Sea

Friday, April 5, 2019. At Sea

Another day on the sunny Pacific Ocean.  Our day started out with breakfast in the dining room followed by our warm-up AM trivia.  We didn’t shame our selves but lost by 4 points, which was pretty bad for us.  We didn’t know what color suit Michael Jackson sports on the cover of the Thriller album, the year of the Great Chicago Fire, and a few other choice bits of trivia.  We did learn that Chubbie Checker’s real name was Earnest Evans, for future reference.

Our last progressive trivia quiz was also today.  The scores from yesterday had shown we had moved up to tie for second place with 2 other teams, trailing the leader by just 1 point.  We will have to wait until tomorrow to see who won the progressive trivia.  

We stuck around for an Art trivia, which we have not ever done before.  It is run by the Art Gallery staff, rather than the Cruise Director’s staff.  We ended doing better than we had anticipated, but the winner was on a first name basis with the host, and someone who apparently spends a lot of time in the art gallery buying items.  

After lunch, we relaxed in our stateroom watching movies, and Ben got in a workout at the fitness center. We watched a Transformers movie “Bumblebee” and Hearts Beating Loud, getting them checked off our list of movies to watch.  

After an early dinner, we met up with our regular trivia partners and did 70’s music trivia, scoring 40/45 with song titles and artists, but the winning team had a perfect score of 45/45.  We need to work on our heavy metal band recognition.  

The ship’s Hawaiian cultural ambassador, Tiki Dave, who gave enrichment lectures on Hawaii, put on a musical show backed by the Princess Orchestra, and he did a good job, playing music from the 60’s and 70’s, and getting the audience involved.  

Our clocks go forward another hour tonight, back to West Coast time.  We received disembarkation instructions under our door tonight- a sad reminder that the cruise is nearly over.  But with all these sea days, and the weather at home getting nicer and nicer, we will be looking forward to getting home to get our vegetable garden planted and boat prepared for the upcoming boating season.  

Thursday, April 4, 2019. At Sea

Thursday, April 4, 2019.  At Sea

Yet another day at sea.  We have left the great Pacific Gyrus and entered into the California current, as evidenced by a drop in temperature into the upper 60’s.  The seas have remained pretty calm, but the ship continues to gently rock with the long Pacific swells.  

Ben discovered at breakfast that if you order hot milk, they bring you foamed milk, just like from an espresso, so you can make yourself a cafe latte by adding the foamed milk to the coffee for free. After a quick breakfast, we joined our regular team for the morning trivia, but fell 2 points short of winning.  We didn’t know what Jiu-Jitsu translates to in English and guessed wrong on which comedian said “The Concorde is great.  You get 3 more hours to find your luggage.” We also got the wrong city hosting the 2024 Olympics.  

Ben got a workout in while Janet started on The Sisters Brothers- a Western movie.  After lunch, our progressive trivia team lost a couple of points on technicalities (forgot to scratch out a preliminary answer after writing out the correct answer, and wrote 1500’s (14th century) when the answer was 16th century.  It was frustrating that we did have the correct answers for two questions but missed out on the points.  The team grading our quiz was particularly strict. We’ll pick a different team to grade future quizzes. We did learn that Thomas Mapother IV’s alter ego is Tom Cruise. That might come in handy for future trivia games.

The time changes were catching up to us so we opted to take a nap instead of doing the afternoon trivia and watched the rest of Sisters and Brothers. Not a great western, but better than Alpha was.  

We had dinner in the dining room.  The best thing about having dinner in the dining room is you can get better desserts than you can in the buffet.  You can always get their home-made ice creams and gelatos with no extra charge.

We had the Captain’s Circle reception and the waitstaff was much more accessible than they were on the Regal Princess on our Caribbean cruise.  We were able to scam 3 cocktails out of them, but also learned that 3 cocktails is probably a bit too much for us, as we stumbled about for a few hours after that.  The cocktails did make the comedian’s show in the Princess theater much more entertaining.  Michael Wilson had been on the tonight show and was pretty funny.  He did some good impressions, including one of Minnie Ripperton singing Lovin’ You with it’s hypersonic top notes. 

After the comedian’s show, we walked to the Explorer’s lounge to watch Liar’s Club, learning a few new crazy words including Titinope, Kakkerlack, Zorrilla and Buffo.  This is a game show where three of the cruise director’s staff propose different definitions for each word, trying to convince the audience that they are telling the truth.  Then the audience votes for each definition before the true definition is revealed.  The team that votes for the most correct definitions wins, but there was standing room only in the lounge, so we just observed, rather than playing.  

We closed out the evening with a swing by the pizza and ice creamery, then retiring to our stateroom to watch “Venom”, a Marvel Comic movie about someone who get’s superpowers when he is symbionized by an alien lifeform.  Lots of crazy fight and chase sequences, but not a whole lot of meaningful plot.  What can you expect from a comic book, I guess.  That seems to be mostly what Hollywood is turning out now.

We continue to churn our way towards Ensenada Mexico.  While we enjoy sea days, we are just about ready to make landfall.  Too bad they can’t move Easter Island a few thousand miles north to position it exactly halfway between Hawaii and Los Angeles.

Wednesday, April 3, 2019. At Sea

Wednesday, April 3, 2019.  At Sea

After breakfast we were going to attend the enrichment lecture on oceanography and climate change, but left early to join our trivia team at morning trivia.  We have been disappointed that the enrichment lectures have not been rebroadcast on the on demand video system as they have on other cruises.  That will deserve a mention in our after cruise evaluation form.  

Since we began the homeward leg of this trip, the trivia crowd has grown considerably so it is hard to find a place to sit unless you show up at least 15 minutes before.  We thought we had done OK, but the winning team had a perfect score.  We didn’t know what a taipan is, and we didn’t know what country Timbuktu is in.  We also didn’t know what a billabong is.

We did have a relaxed lunch before our 5th progressive trivia quiz.  We did pretty good scoring 12/13 only missing what disease whose Latin name translates to bad air.  We had incorrectly guessed pneumonia.  It seems to be taking the cruise director’s staff a long time to post updated scores on the progressive trivia, we don’t know if we are gaining on the lead or not.  

They did have a new trivia called Car Logos, which we won with a perfect score of 24/24.  We actually tied with another team, but they had nine players, and should have been disqualified.  We are building up an inventory of Princess wine bottle stoppers and Ruby Princess silicone coasters.  

We took the afternoon off from trivia, choosing instead to get started on another movie and getting a workout in instead of trying to win more coasters or wine bottle stoppers.

After dinner, we watched the Princess Theater entertainer Bryan Chatham, who was a Semi-Finalist on America’s got Talent.  He is musician, singer and dancer who put on a high energy show featuring music of Stevie Wonder and other artists from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s.  

We finished our evening with an 80’s music trivia, scoring 33/40, but there was a winning team with a perfect score of 40/40.  We didn’t do so well with the heavy metal bands that were popular in the late 80’s.

Our clocks move forward another hour tonight.

Tuesday, April 2, 2019, At Sea

Tuesday, April 2, 2019. At Sea

Janet has managed to come down with a cold and was sniffling and struggling to breathe last night. During our Hilo excursion, we went into the Volcanos National Park visitor center and sat briefly in the theater when it became abundantly clear that several kids sitting right in front of us were sick, coughing and hacking like crazy.  We left the theater, but maybe not soon enough to avoid that virus.  We had to dose Janet up with meds to keep her from having to stuff a Kleenex up her nose.  

We did manage to keep busy the entire day with little down time.  We started with the naturalist’s enrichment lecture on sea birds, and then hit our first trivia of the day.  Our usual team joined us, but we fell 4 points behind the winners.  Somehow, someone knew Watt Tyler lead the peasant’s revolt in 1381, and the University of East Anglia was located in Norwich ( it would have been a major advantage to have someone from England on the team).  

We had lunch in the dining room  and then hit our fourth installment of the progressive trivia in the early afternoon.  We did a little better, scoring 8/10, but having someone from England would have clinched it since we had no idea of what river flows through New Castle, Gateshead and Jarrow.  Did you know a 2 man bob sleigh is called a boblet?  

Janet was able to get her book finished and Ben got in a workout at the fitness center in the afternoon before our next trivia, for which we tagged in with couples from Florida and Texas, whom we had sat in on afternoon trivia with before.  But we were 2 points off the lead.  Do you know what South American Country’s name means from water to water?  

We had to get into our formal clothes again but were a little suprise that the menu didn’t really offer anything special for our formal night.  There was roast beef and Cornish game hen, but no prime rib, lobster tail, or even tiger prawns.  They did have the Chocolate Journey Hazelnut bar for dessert, so perhaps it was worth it getting changed after all.  

The Princess Theater featured a magician who did mostly mentalist tricks and some card tricks.  We have seen all these tricks before, but still can’t figure out how they’re done and he kept us entertained.  

We finished the evening watching a rather dumb movie called Alpha on the on-demand video about a whimper caveman who befriends a wolf. At least we didn’t have to pay to see that in a theater.  

We imagine the next 3 days are going to be pretty much the same, but somehow, we stay very busy, entertained and well fed.  Life could be tougher.

Monday, April 1, 2019. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

Monday, April 1, 2019. Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii

A lovely blue sky greeted us as we dropped anchor off Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii.  We could actually see whales in the channel between Maui and Niihau Islands from our balcony, although they were probably at least a half mile away and not doing much more than periodically surfacing, but Janet did see a huge splash from at least one breach.  

We didn’t have any excursions booked because we have been on Maui before, including a two week stay where we did just about everything there is to do on the island.  We had a leisurely breakfast and then got in line for the tenders to take us into Lahaina harbor.

The tender operations were very slow because Lahaina only allows one tender in their marina at a time, and they have to wait for any other traffic to enter or exit the marina.  It took more than a half hour from when we picked up our tender tickets to setting foot on the dock in the harbor.  We did a walking tour of Lahaina after picking up a tourist map at the visitor information center just across the street from the tender dock.  A lot of the town did appear familiar. We walked past the place where our kids took surfing lessons, and then walked the length of Front street, reading the brass plaques at historical points of interest, and gawking at merchandise in the stores.  We did end up buying an unusual pearl pendant to add to our collection of natural wonders.  

It did take a great deal of will power to not sit down for a big helping of Hula Pie, but we did have some shaved ice and ice cream to keep our cool.  We have really lucked out on the weather, which as perfect today with clear blue skies and temperatures in the mid to upper 70’s.  A nice breeze kept us comfortable.  

We returned to the ship after a couple of hours pounding the pavement of Lahaina, and had a rejuvenating afternoon tea.  We played the afternoon trivia by ourselves since the rest of our regular team was still not back from their excursions.  We didn’t shame ourselves, but also fell several points behind the winners.  There was some time to relax on our balcony with an amazing view of Niihau island.  

We grabbed a casual dinner in the buffet, and then joined up with our usual trivia team for what as supposed to be a car logo trivia, but due to technical troubles (file corruption), we ended up doing a Superheros and Villians trivia, which we managed to win by a 2 point margin.  

We wound up our evening with the Princess Theater show by Jesse and Colleen Kazemek, who did a Beatles tribute show.  We had seen them doing another show on a prior cruise, and they do put on an entertaining show.  This one had several Beatles medleys and a Stump the Chump part where the audience called up Beatles songs and Jesse would then play and sing them on his guitar.  His wife Colleen came up and did a couple of songs with him.  They were backed by the Princess band and put on another good show.  What’s not to like about Beatles songs?

Our clocks go forward an hour tonight, and we have five days at sea ahead of us before we arrive in Ensenada Mexico.  There’s probably a lot of trivia in our near future.

Sunday, March 31, 2019. Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii

Sunday, March 31, 2019. Nawiliwili, Kauai, Hawaii

Another early morning greeted us with the sight of Nawiliwili looming ahead.  We had to meet in the theater for our excursion so that we could be issued a sticker, and then herded down out of the ship and to our awaiting tour bus. There were 46 passengers in a 52 passenger bus so there were a few empty seats we could spread out in at the back of the bus.  This bus had no issues with heating or air conditioning.  It turned out to be a nice day with overcast and temperatures in the mid 70’s.  It is a long drive from Nawiliwili to the Waimea Canyon, which was our first official stop, but our driver/guide did make a stop at a nice gift shop called Mariko, which had nice big bathrooms, free coffee, and a huge showroom with all sorts of souvenirs, arts and crafts, including Nihau shell leis that can cost a few thousands of dollars.  

Our drive took us along the coast line for a bit. We stopped on the Wailua Heritage trail to see a landmark called the spouting horn, which is a blowhole that shoots spray skyward with tidal surges.  There were also the infamous Kauai chickens roaming wild.  We learned that there is actually an endangered species called Kauai jungle fowl, which looks like a chicken with black legs.  The males of this species have no comb.  Janet spotted a hen with her very well camouflaged chicks hiding near a fallen log.  

From the coast, we headed inland and wound up a long series of switchbacks to over 3000ft in altitude to the Waimea Canyon overlook.  The Canyon is beautiful and grand in scope, although it is a lot smaller than the Grand Canyon in Arizona and Colorado.  The tropical vegetation and iron rich soils give it remarkable colors.  There were a seemingly endless supply of helicopters flying through the canyon well below the canyon rim. This is certainly not allowed in the Grand Canyon, but perhaps there have not been any serious accidents yet over the skies of the Waimea Canyon to prompt the FAA to ban flying below the rim.  

From the Waimea Canyon overlook, we had lunch at a very nice restaurant called Keoki’s Paradise.  This buffet was set in a covered terrace set amongst beautify landscaping.  There was kalua pork with cabbage, macadamia nut encrusted mahi-mahi and teriyaki chicken along with salad, fresh melons and pineapples.  Then we headed back down to sea level to the Wailua river and Fern Grotto.  This is apparently one of the very few permanent rivers in the Hawaiian islands that is navigable.  The tourist boats are basically flat bottom barges with an outboard motor consisting of two big diesels in a mini tug boat connected to the back of the barge with a hydraulic pivot.  There wasn’t much to see along the river in terms of wildlife aside from occasional stand-up paddleboarders, but we did pass a reconstruction of a native Hawaiian village that was used in a few movies.  The fern grotto is pretty, but not terribly impressive because a hurricane several years ago ripped out most of the ferns, and it has taken a long time for the ferns to regrow.  There were also a series of rock falls, which closed the actual grotto to access.  Instead, the park built a viewing platform in front of the grotto.  We were serenaded on the platform with a Hawaiian version of the Hawaiian wedding song made famous by Elvis Presley from his Blue Hawaii movie.  We took a short walk through the tropical jungle between the fern grotto and the boat dock.  The undergrowth is very similar to Costa Rica’s rain forest.  There were tons of flowering ginger, and we saw some beautify purple banana flowers.  

We got back to the ship and had dinner in the main dining room, and both ended up ordering more macadamia nut encrusted mahi-mahi and a Chocolate Journey dessert.  

The evening Princess Theater production show featured the singers and dancers doing music from the 50’s in a show called Stardust.  It was curious that there was an extra pair of lead singers worked into this show.  Usually there are two male leads and two female leads. We wondered if the third pair were in training.  The show was enjoyable and well done, although not as elaborate as the Stephen Schwartz productions.  

We wound up the night with a few trivia games including a “Gift of the Gab” contest where you have to try to decode nonsense phrases by sounding them out.  An example would be “Elf Habits Hoop”= alphabet soup.  We thought we did pretty well figuring out 18/20, but a team in the back of the room who graded their own paper gave themselves a perfect score, which as a little hard to believe.  We did a Jeopardy like trivia game, which we didn’t win, but did ok on, but we then finished the evening on a win with a “Miracle Lyrical” trivia game where they played music video clips and stopped them in the middle. You then had to fill in the next line of lyrics. That got us some more silicone Ruby Princess coasters.

They do have a Wake Show quiz with drawing each day, and somehow we have managed to get our names drawn from the pile of correct answers several times, so we have also been amassing Princess trivia prizes that way. We’ve gotten 4 coasters and a little blue journal so far.  

Tomorrow is our last day in the Hawaiian islands before we spend 5 days at sea returning to Los Angeles.  It’s too bad this itinerary doesn’t overnight at some of these ports of call since there is so much that you can do in Hawaii, and it takes such a long time to reach Hawaii from Los Angeles.  We don’t have any formal excursion booked for Lahaina, Maui.  We had spent 2 weeks on Maui in the past and have pretty much done all the tourist sites, so we’ll just take a relaxing walk through Lahaina.